Let me tell you that this is your opinion only. This is not saying that some WDC's were undeserved. But there are some seasons that you believed another driver should have won the title.

1958: Moss is often quoted as best driver to have never won WDC, I think having a better record against Hawthorn when both finished he should have been WDC, but Hawthorn was more consistent, with Moss having worse reliabilty, I think Moss deserved at least 1 WDC, can't say if Hawthorn never deserved a WDC but he has a poor winning record but he died however not long after his WDC1986: I think Mansell should have won his first WDC there but a tyre decided elseway1989: Senna having worse reliability than Prost but finishing higher up than Prost in almost every race they both finished, and the Japan DSQ of Senna with a very partial Balestre makes me believe Senna deserved title more than Prost, I think had he lived he would have been at 5 times WDC1994: Hill should have won, Schumi retired and deliberately ran into Hill, plus Schumi running illegal traction control at the start of the season, however I don't think Damon was that good to have 2 WDC's to his name, Schumi being 6 times WDC would be more correct I think

By deliberately disregarding the bad luck of other drivers throughout a season, and subjectively (with bias) nominating only one driver to have wishfully had nothing but good luck, Mark Webber in 2010.

Had he not drifted wide on (I think) lap 17 of the Korean Grand Prix, I think he would have been on to win that race. Again, disregarding any bad luck anyone else ever faced in that season (with a bias view), that would have given Mark the championship by 11 points over Vettel.

Maybe his fractured shoulder played a part. He himself says it didn't, but Mark doesn't like to make excuses and perhaps preferred not to excuse his shortcomings. Either way, I look to 2010 as a way of coping with Mark's bad run of late.

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Senna should have been champion in 1994. Yes his season started badly, scoring nothing in 3 races if memory serves, but ultimately he was a better driver than Hill, and even Damon managed to take it down to the wire.

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2005 Raikkonen, his best year in the sport for me. Showed blinding speed and was badly let down by McLaren's poor reliability, similar to what Hamilton had this year

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Raikonnen should have won with Mclaren... I think it was 2002? I forgOt

I am one of those people that think that whoever ends up with the most points at the end of the season deserves to win the WDC but, having said that, I was so impressed with Kimi when he drove for McLaren that I always thought each year that he would finally win the Championship. And he probably would have if it wasn't for the continuous unreliability of his car. This is why I always laugh when certain fans of Lewis make up conspiracy theories about his car's unreliability this year. If they had followed F1 for a long time they would know that McLaren has a history of being fast but unreliable, just ask Kimi

Last edited by DrG on Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

2005 Raikkonen, his best year in the sport for me. Showed blinding speed and was badly let down by McLaren's poor reliability, similar to what Hamilton had this year

I agree. Maybe I remember wrong but, in addition to the reliability, Montoya seemed to let Alonso pass him at every opportunity.

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I've often thought about what I would have liked to have happened if I was writing the sport as a book, I guess this is a good place to put some of my thoughts.Sticking to the last ten years as my memory is fuzzy for any further back, and yes these are contradictory in some places, multiple universes are required...

2003 Raikkonen wins the WDC.2005 Raikkonen wins. As I've said previously, 2012 was Hamilton's equivalent of Raikkonen's 2005, even to the superficial similarities of deciding to leave the team for possibly similar reasons, and enforcing Schumacher's retirement from a huge and famous works team.2006 Schumacher retires as WDC. Brasil was one of the best drives I've seen.2007 Hamilton wins in his first year.2007 Alonso wins in his first year at McLaren, and so gets three WDC in a row, in two different teams. 2008 Massa wins.2010 Webber wins.2012 Raikkonen wins.

Each change should be considered individually and not along with the other changes. For example, I don't think that Raikkonen should necessarily have four WDCs, or Alonso three, or Schumacher eight.

in order of my liking Kimi: 2003 and 2005Hamilton: 2007 and 2012Felipe: 2008Alonso: 2010

and making this (in my opinion) the most reflective in the terms of WDC success on the current grid with Kimi, Alonso and Hamilton at 2 each and Felipe, JB and Vettel at 12003: Kimi2004: MS (6)2005: Kimi (2)2006: Alonso2007: Hamilton2008: Felipe2009: JB2010: Alonso (2)2011: Vettel2012: Hamilton (2)

1994: Hill should have won, Schumi retired and deliberately ran into Hill, plus Schumi running illegal traction control at the start of the season, however I don't think Damon was that good to have 2 WDC's to his name, Schumi being 6 times WDC would be more correct I think

Schumi was not running illegal traction control at any point of the season. However the incident with Hill is a legitimate grievance, although not one I particularly feel sorry for, it was a risky pass and Schumacher was driving a damaged car.

Fascinating thought process. Mika was wasn't as consistent so THANKFULLY Schumi broke his leg??? Thus making Mika more deserving?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Hakkinen wasn't as consistent in 99 making some errors while in the lead of races (mainly imola and monza if memory serves me correctly) and the mclaren wasn't as reliable that year. Irvine fought him to the end and I have a suspicion that had schumi not broken his legs in silverstone(I'm not saying I'm glad he did my respect for Schumacher has increased massively since his comeback and I would never willingly want to see any racing driver get hurt so apologies if thats the way it came across) he would've taken the title in 99. Who was more deserving...being a Hakkinen fan i would go with my initial statement but it would've been interesting to see who would've came on top had Schumi been able to compete at all the races.

Schumacher had to be WDC in 97, 99, 06. He could have 10 WDC which he deserved.

Schumacher didn't deserve 97 the minute he tried to drive JV off the road. No driver would have done. Just like Senna didn't deserve 90 for driving into Prost.

As for 99, Schumacher may have been driving great before the leg break and all but after that Hakkinen did get awfully complacent at times. If Schuey had been fine Mika wouldn't have slacked off at all and we will never know how Schuey would have fared the rest of the year.

Just been doing a bit of research for a series of articles I'm working on: under today's points system, Eddie Irvine would be the 1999 World Champion. Given how he picked up the slack once Schumacher was out of the picture, I think he deserved to. I also think Hakkinen did though, so I'm happy with it as it is too.

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Prost was lucky to win the title in 1993 - given the Williams' dominance he didn't exactly thrash Hill or Senna (the latter in a clearly inferior car).

If it wasn't for Hill's DNF's in South Africa, San Marino, Spain, GB, Germany and starting from the back in Portugal (he qualified on pole and was looking for his 4th win in a row and only finishing 4th) - Prost would have had his work cut out.

Prost's DNF's in Brazil, Hungary and Italy notwithstanding, Hill lost at least 40pts when either in the lead or a guaranteed podium (South Africa he was fighting his way back after spinning on lap one and probably would have finished in the top three).

Just been doing a bit of research for a series of articles I'm working on: under today's points system, Eddie Irvine would be the 1999 World Champion. Given how he picked up the slack once Schumacher was out of the picture, I think he deserved to. I also think Hakkinen did though, so I'm happy with it as it is too.

Don't think he did deserve it, Eddie himself said he found it stupid that just to stay in the title hunt they had to effectively manipulate race results. Of his four wins that season two he got because of team orders (Salo at Germany, Schumacher at Malaysia) and Austria was pretty much handed to him on a plate once DC knocked off Hakkinen at the start.

_________________Support: Kimi, Lewis, Jenson, THE HULK and Super Kevin Magnussen Respect: Eyebrow man, Schumi and finally after three long years Sebastian Vettel. Fairplay to the guy he is quick!Still don't like: Di Resta and his neck glassing team mate

Just been doing a bit of research for a series of articles I'm working on: under today's points system, Eddie Irvine would be the 1999 World Champion. Given how he picked up the slack once Schumacher was out of the picture, I think he deserved to. I also think Hakkinen did though, so I'm happy with it as it is too.

Don't think he did deserve it, Eddie himself said he found it stupid that just to stay in the title hunt they had to effectively manipulate race results. Of his four wins that season two he got because of team orders (Salo at Germany, Schumacher at Malaysia) and Austria was pretty much handed to him on a plate once DC knocked off Hakkinen at the start.

The flip side is he handed at least one position to Schui before Silverstone. (France I think)

McLaren wasn't horribly unreliable in 2003 so that wasn't their main downfall. Of course the most conspicuous misfortune was when Kimi lost an almost sure victory at Nurburgring due to the Mercedes engine blowing up, his two other retirements where at race starts 1) Spain where started from last place and hit the back of a stalled car on the grid 2) Germany where he was wiped out in the first corner crash with Barrichello and Firman. Team mate Coulthard had 3 mechanical DNFs. At Ferrari Schumacher had 0 mechanical DNFs, and only one retirement overall when he crashed out in the rain at the Brazilian GP, whereas Barrichello had 2 mechanical DNFs and 3 collisions. McLaren's main problem was that the car was usually slow compared to Ferrari and Williams, ie. the problem was the exact opposite they had in 2005 when the car was unreliable. IMO Kimi's 2003 is better than 2005, although the results don't show it (only 1 victory and 2 poles) but he was fast and consistent in a car that over the course of the season wasn't a match for Ferrari or Williams. And he finished only 2 points off the title. Therefore, I think he was the driver of the year ahead of Schumi or Monty.

Then 2005 was the other way round. The car was the fastest on a majority of circuits but it wasn't reliable. Kimi only had two mechanical DNFs (both from the lead) but he incurred several 10-place grid penalties due engine problems in FPs, meaning he had to start from way back and could never contest for the win in those races.

Actually, I'll throw out there the legendary MP4-18 as another reason for Kimi Raikkonen to have taken the 2003 title - had the car not spent the year blowing up and trying to kill its test drivers it would have blown the competition away. As it was, it probably soured the McLaren-Newey relationship.

It also says a lot that a heavily modified '17D could take the fight the the F2003 when the '17 itself could never really match the F2002.

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Actually, I'll throw out there the legendary MP4-18 as another reason for Kimi Raikkonen to have taken the 2003 title - had the car not spent the year blowing up and trying to kill its test drivers it would have blown the competition away. As it was, it probably soured the McLaren-Newey relationship.

It also says a lot that a heavily modified '17D could take the fight the the F2003 when the '17 itself could never really match the F2002.

They can thank Michelin and their "widening" tires for that.

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McLaren wasn't horribly unreliable in 2003 so that wasn't their main downfall. Of course the most conspicuous misfortune was when Kimi lost an almost sure victory at Nurburgring due to the Mercedes engine blowing up, his two other retirements where at race starts 1) Spain where started from last place and hit the back of a stalled car on the grid 2) Germany where he was wiped out in the first corner crash with Barrichello and Firman. Team mate Coulthard had 3 mechanical DNFs. At Ferrari Schumacher had 0 mechanical DNFs, and only one retirement overall when he crashed out in the rain at the Brazilian GP, whereas Barrichello had 2 mechanical DNFs and 3 collisions. McLaren's main problem was that the car was usually slow compared to Ferrari and Williams, ie. the problem was the exact opposite they had in 2005 when the car was unreliable. IMO Kimi's 2003 is better than 2005, although the results don't show it (only 1 victory and 2 poles) but he was fast and consistent in a car that over the course of the season wasn't a match for Ferrari or Williams. And he finished only 2 points off the title. Therefore, I think he was the driver of the year ahead of Schumi or Monty.

The thing is unlike Montoya and Schumacher racing each other, Raikkonen never seemed to be racing Schumacher. This is partly because of the tyres. When Ferrari brought out their delayed new car, the F2003-GA, all seemed to be well as Schumacher closed down Raikkonen's lead. But a very hot summer (record breaking) made the Bridgestones struggle while the Michelins excelled. This suddenly made it a very close fight for the championship, along with the Williams that suddenly figured out how to set up the car, and became the car to beat much of the time.

Kimi did a very good job and was very consistent, he lost 10 points in Nurburgring to engine failure but Schumacher also lost a whole load of points due to puncture in Hockenheim and bargeboards falling off in Australia, as well as being caught on the wrong side of the rain in Japan.

Kimi also benefited from the bizarre tyre ruling that lead Bridgestone to turn up to Brazil 2003 having only inters, and Michelin only wets. Whatever costs were saved were surely lost again in the crashes... . In any case Schumacher was doing a pretty good job hanging onto the McLarens, far ahead of Barrichello, before he crashed right as the safety car came out because it was raining even harder and too wet for the Bridgestone Inters.

Turns out Schumacher (even if he had trundled around behind Barrichello) would have won if he had waited for the restart in much drier conditions, while Coulthard would have had bad luck if he had had any luck at all. So it's not like all the misfortune in 2003 befell Kimi. Unlike 2005!

Brazil 2003 was a somewhat farcical example, but it reflects generally that in modern wet races, gambling on the race being stopped seems to be something of a strategy. Vergne in Malaysia was all over the place and about to be caught by a whole host of cars lead by Schumacher (ironically) who had the lap before pitted for the appropriate tyres, and then the race was stopped allowing him to not only keep the position but save a few laps on his tyres!

RaisinChips wrote:

Then 2005 was the other way round. The car was the fastest on a majority of circuits but it wasn't reliable. Kimi only had two mechanical DNFs (both from the lead) but he incurred several 10-place grid penalties due engine problems in FPs, meaning he had to start from way back and could never contest for the win in those races.

He had three mechanical failures if you count Nurburgring, and what 5 grid penalties or something... a lot. A lot of this handed points to Alonso as well, so pretty unlucky for Kimi.

Actually, I'll throw out there the legendary MP4-18 as another reason for Kimi Raikkonen to have taken the 2003 title - had the car not spent the year blowing up and trying to kill its test drivers it would have blown the competition away. As it was, it probably soured the McLaren-Newey relationship.

It also says a lot that a heavily modified '17D could take the fight the the F2003 when the '17 itself could never really match the F2002.